Kylie thinks it stinks!

(Saturday, July 18 ~ Mud Volcano, and lunch on Lake Yellowstone)

When we arrived at Mud Volcano, we parked the car and instead of heading straight to the boardwalks we decided to take a "potty break" (we had perhaps a few more of those with two little ones along than we would have if it had been just us...) and I almost took my camera with me to the "glorified outhouse." I still can remember thinking, "Oh, I don't need to take my camera to the bathroom, I'll just run back to the car and grab it before we investigate the area." When Kylie and I came out of the bathroom ~ laughing at some nonsense joke she had just made up ~ Ian whispered (without moving his lips ~ that's how you know he is SERIOUS about something), "Very slowly pick Kylie up!" And when I didn't respond quickly enough for his liking he added a firm, "NOW!"
Then I glanced left and realized the reason for his gruffness. It wasn't out of irritation that we had taken so long of a potty break, it was out of concern for our safety ~ there was a buffalo about 15 feet away from us and he was casually strolling our way! Suddenly all those signs that I'd seen all over the park (and just photographed at our last stop ~ see the end of this post for a reminder) didn't seem so funny anymore! I think that for the five minutes as he passed by (at the closest I could have taken one step forward and stretched out my arm to touch him!) I didn't breathe at all. Ian quietly whispered, "If he starts to turn toward us, sprint to the outhouse!" The buffalo paused, turned his head and looked at us, almost as if to say, "Hmm, those buffalo are strangely naked." and then finally turned his head back toward Sulphur Cauldron and moseyed on his way.
After that I didn't really want to see anymore buffalo...

Mud Volcano was a hillside still active with different forms of geothermal activity. We saw a pond at a rolling boil,

(actually, it wasn't boiling, it was just gases escaping through cracks in the bottom of the pond)

a dragon's lair,

(okay, so a dragon didn't live in the cave, but it was pretty cool ~ and easy to imagine that a fire breathing dragon could be in the back of the crevice)

and we smelled some pretty smelly fumes!

Kylie freely expressed her dislike of the sulphur smell...

and eventually made her desire to head on to the lake rather apparent!

As we walked back to the car we got one more look at just how active the area at Mud Volcano still is ~ areas of the parking lot are caving in and steaming...

At this point we hopped back into the car to travel the remaining miles south to Lake Yellowstone. I knew from reading that it was the largest high altitude freshwater lake in North America, but I was slightly unprepared for the miles and miles of shoreline that we drove along! Immense is a better word to describe it. In fact, when we got out of the car at the picnic area, Kylie asked why the ocean didn't have any waves here. Yeah, it seemed THAT big.

This picture doesn't really capture the enormity of the lake, but I loved the one puffy cloud in the sky.

We enjoyed our picnic right on the water, the food was good, the company was great, and the view was breathtaking!

Eskimo kisses from my sweet girl
Kylie lining up our stick family. Notice that there are a LOT more than five sticks standing. It was on this trip that Kylie took off her shoes when she ran out of fingers and after ten continued in a giggling voice, "Eleven kids, twelve kids..."
Little Miss Adventure headed back to the table after she declared the water "Too cold to swim!"

And just in case you wonder where Caleb was during the picnic...

He had one beautiful setting for his afternoon siesta!

A little guy has got to catch a few Zzzs sometime!

No worries about Caleb missing lunch ~ we made him a peanut butter sandwich and pulled out a few chips! He was all smiles as he munched his lunch on the way back to the Old Faithful geyser area!

This picture mostly for Tricia and Cindy who were both concerned after the cauliflower post that Caleb had lost his passion for fried potatoes... No worries!